WASHINGTON — President Trump and the Justice Department are asking the Supreme Court to toss an $83 million defamation verdict won by writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of sexual assault, saying he can’t be sued for comments he made while he was president.
It’s the second time Trump has asked the justices to nix damages awarded by a jury to Carroll, a longtime advice columnist and former TV talk show host. The Supreme Court refused in June to hear his appeal of another verdict, for $5 million, that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
The latest case centers on comments Trump made during his first term as president. The Justice Department wants to invoke the Westfall Act, which shields government employees from being sued for doing their jobs.
“Absent this Court’s intervention, the sitting President is facing nearly a hundred million dollars of personal liability for conduct that was well within the scope of his federal office,” federal attorneys wrote. “That alone deserves this Court’s attention.”
The appeal was filed electronically and is expected to be formally docketed with the court Wednesday.
Trump’s lawyers, meanwhile, argued that an appeals court “engaged in procedural contortions” to avoid addressing Trump’s claims that presidential immunity protects him from the $83 million award because he made the statements in question in 2019 while he was president.
The lawyers argued that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled in a manner that “cries out for this Court’s review in this unprecedented case” and called the damages “grossly excessive.”
“This is the first case in our nation’s history in which a court has imposed damages liability on a president for his conduct in office,” the lawyers wrote.
Carroll’s lawyers have declined to comment on the latest Trump filing.
Trump has long argued he cannot be sued over comments he made about Carroll during his first term where he disavowed knowing her and attacked her motivations for going public with her story in a recent memoir. He’s also asking the Supreme Court justices to reconsider their rejection of his appeal in the $5 million verdict.
The appeal comes about two years after the Supreme Court granted Trump broad immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
Carroll testified twice before New York juries that Trump sexually assaulted her in spring 1996 in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury retailer across the street from Trump Tower. She first went public with the claims in a 2019 memoir.
She sued Trump for defamation after he accused her of making up the allegation to help book sales, adding that he’d never met her and “she’s not my type.” He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
A Manhattan jury awarded her $83 million in damages in January 2024. Lower courts have so far rejected Trump’s appeals to overturn the verdict, though the New York-based appeals court split over the decision and agreed to delay that payout until the Supreme Court weighs in.
In 2023, another jury said Carroll was entitled to $5 million after concluding that Trump had subjected her to sexual abuse in the department store encounter and for defamation for remarks he had made after his first term ended. That judgment has been paid.
The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.
Whitehurst and Neumeister write for the Associated Press. Neumeister reported from New York.
Jared Leto has denied allegations of criminal sexual conductCredit: Getty – ContributorFour women accused Hollywood actor of criminal sexual misconductCredit: Getty
He said: “I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false.”
The allegations against the Oscar winner, 54, date from when the women were aged between 16 and 19.
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Thank you!
One accuser alleges she had sex with Leto when she was 17, which under Californian laws would be classed as statutory rape.
The Hollywood star, aged 34 at the time, invited the woman and a friend to his Californian home, the alleged accuser told the BBC.
She claims Leto told her friend to wait in a separate room as the alleged rape took place.
A second woman claims she was sexually assaulted in a “dingy” Las Vegas motel bathroom when she was 17.
A third claims the Dallas Buyers Club star threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19 after the pair were left alone in a hotel room.
The allegations came after a Thirty Seconds to Mars concert at London’s O2 Arena in 2013 when Leto would have been 41.
A fourth accused Leto of grooming her and alleges he once took advantage of his celebrity status by making repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16.
He suggested they should have sex on at least one occasion, the alleged victim claims.
The accusations all come from a new BBC documentary titled Jared Leto: Hollywood‘s Dark Secret.
The BBC claims they have seen at least one non-disclosure agreement (NDA) sent to a woman aimed at preventing her from talking about her relationship with Leto.
Another woman also accuses the Morbius lead of ordering a security guard to take her backstage at a music festival when she was 14.
More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online
Thesun.co.uk is your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures and must-see video.
The decision on Stokes and Atkinson brings an element of closure to an extraordinary period, as English cricket has had to deal with yet another off-field controversy.
Without Stokes and Atkinson, an inexperienced England team showing five changes to the one that won the first Test was soundly beaten in the second.
It means Stokes will be back for a crucial decider at Trent Bridge, with England desperate for a series win to alleviate pressure that has grown over the dismal Ashes winter and this latest chaotic episode.
And while Stokes’ return as a leader and all-rounder is vital for his team, there will be renewed scrutiny on his relationship with the rest of the England hierarchy, in particular head coach Brendon McCullum.
All of Stokes, McCullum and director of cricket Rob Key denied the captain and coach were at odds during the Ashes, when England were hammered 4-1.
Speaking on Sunday, after the loss at The Oval, McCullum said he is ready to work with Stokes again.
“We’ve worked together intimately for four years,” said McCullum. “We’ve achieved some cool things and let ourselves down in other things.
“Our motivation, belief and ambition for this side has not wavered. We have robust conversations all the way through and I think that is to be expected when you’re in positions of leadership. There is a mutual respect to how we operate with those.
“I anticipate we’ll be able to work together really well in the week coming and I’m sure that both of us have that same vision for this cricket team.”
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has denied Bill Cosby’s request for a new trial after a civil jury recently found he was liable for $19 million in damages in a sexual assault case.
Judge Bradley S. Phillips ruled Friday that Cosby did not prove there was “any irregularity” in the court proceedings that would have prevented him from getting a fair trial and that the damages awarded to his accuser were not “excessive.”
“The Court finds that there was sufficient evidence … to support the jury’s finding that defendant’s conduct caused plaintiff’s damages,” Phillips wrote in Friday’s order.
In March, a jury awarded former waitress Donna Motsinger $19.25 million in damages after she sued Cosby in 2023, alleging that the disgraced comedian drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1972 after escorting her to one of his shows.
Motsinger, now 84, claimed Cosby picked her up at her home and gave her wine and a pill she thought was aspirin on the way to the venue.
“Next thing she knew, she was going in and out of consciousness while two men attending to Mr. Cosby were putting her in the limousine,” the original complaint said. “The last thing Ms. Motsinger recalls were flashes of light,” before waking up in her house in nothing but underwear.
Cosby has denied Motsinger’s allegations, as well as those brought by dozens of other women who said they had been drugged and sexually assaulted by the former actor. Cosby served about three years in a Pennsylvania prison on sexual assault charges before that case was overturned in 2021.
Cosby had filed a motion for a new trial in the Motsinger case in early April. Attorneys for Cosby did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Friday’s ruling.
Times staff writer Fedor Zarkhin contributed to this report.
MINNEAPOLIS — A federal immigration officer wanted for shooting a Venezuelan man during the Trump administration’s Minnesota crackdown was arrested Friday in Texas, authorities said.
Christian Castro, of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, was taken into custody 11 days after Minneapolis prosecutors charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.
Hennepin County, Minnesota prosecutors said the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension located Castro, 52, in Texas and worked with agents from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General’s Office and the Texas Rangers to arrest him.
“Today’s arrest is a critical step forward in our prosecution of Mr. Castro,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said.
Online court records do not list an attorney for Castro and it wasn’t immediately clear if he has one. Messages seeking comment were left with ICE, the Homeland Security Inspector General’s Office and the Texas Rangers.
Castro is the second federal agent to be charged over their conduct during the Minnesota crackdown, which was known as Operation Metro Surge. He is one of two agents that ICE Director Todd Lyons said lied about the circumstances of the incident.
Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty holds up a document containing charges against ICE agent Christian Castro during a news conference at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis, on Monday, May 18, 2026.
(Renée Jones Schneider/Minnesota Star Tribune Via Associated Press)
According to prosecutors, Castro fired through a home’s front door and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were legally in the U.S., Moriarty said.
Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel. A federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether officers lied about what happened.
In a statement after the charges were announced, ICE said the U.S. attorney’s office was investigating statements made by officers, who could face disciplinary action including being fired and prosecuted. ICE called the Hennepin County attorney’s action “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt.” DHS’s Inspector General’s Office, which Moriarty credited with assisting in the arrest, is separate from ICE and is meant to serve as a watchdog for DHS agencies, including ICE.
Minneapolis last month released video showing the moments before Sosa-Celis’s shooting, captured from a distance by a city-owned security camera.
The video appears to show a person standing with a snow shovel outside the house, near the street, then retreating toward the house and tossing the shovel into the yard. This happens as a person being chased by another person runs up from the street, falls on the sidewalk, gets up, and keeps heading toward the house.
The three appear to scuffle near the front steps for about 10 seconds. The exact moment when Sosa-Celis is shot isn’t clear. A car with flashing lights pulls up, and another person walks up.
The Trump administration sent thousands of officers to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area as part of President Trump’s national deportation campaign and considered Operation Metro Surge a success.
But tensions mounted during the weekslong campaign, and the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers sparked mass unrest and raised questions about officers’ conduct.
Minnesota leaders and the Trump administration have clashed over who has the authority to investigate and prosecute federal officers for on-duty conduct.
Moriarty’s office last month charged immigration agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car on a highway. He turned himself in last week and his lawyer disputes the charges.
The county is also investigating Good’s and Pretti’s killings and sued the Trump administration in March to gain access to evidence in those cases and the Sosa-Celis shooting.
Trump and DOJ ask Supreme Court to toss $83 million defamation verdict in E. Jean Carroll case
WASHINGTON — President Trump and the Justice Department are asking the Supreme Court to toss an $83 million defamation verdict won by writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of sexual assault, saying he can’t be sued for comments he made while he was president.
It’s the second time Trump has asked the justices to nix damages awarded by a jury to Carroll, a longtime advice columnist and former TV talk show host. The Supreme Court refused in June to hear his appeal of another verdict, for $5 million, that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
The latest case centers on comments Trump made during his first term as president. The Justice Department wants to invoke the Westfall Act, which shields government employees from being sued for doing their jobs.
“Absent this Court’s intervention, the sitting President is facing nearly a hundred million dollars of personal liability for conduct that was well within the scope of his federal office,” federal attorneys wrote. “That alone deserves this Court’s attention.”
The appeal was filed electronically and is expected to be formally docketed with the court Wednesday.
Trump’s lawyers, meanwhile, argued that an appeals court “engaged in procedural contortions” to avoid addressing Trump’s claims that presidential immunity protects him from the $83 million award because he made the statements in question in 2019 while he was president.
The lawyers argued that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled in a manner that “cries out for this Court’s review in this unprecedented case” and called the damages “grossly excessive.”
“This is the first case in our nation’s history in which a court has imposed damages liability on a president for his conduct in office,” the lawyers wrote.
Carroll’s lawyers have declined to comment on the latest Trump filing.
Trump has long argued he cannot be sued over comments he made about Carroll during his first term where he disavowed knowing her and attacked her motivations for going public with her story in a recent memoir. He’s also asking the Supreme Court justices to reconsider their rejection of his appeal in the $5 million verdict.
The appeal comes about two years after the Supreme Court granted Trump broad immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
Carroll testified twice before New York juries that Trump sexually assaulted her in spring 1996 in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury retailer across the street from Trump Tower. She first went public with the claims in a 2019 memoir.
She sued Trump for defamation after he accused her of making up the allegation to help book sales, adding that he’d never met her and “she’s not my type.” He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
A Manhattan jury awarded her $83 million in damages in January 2024. Lower courts have so far rejected Trump’s appeals to overturn the verdict, though the New York-based appeals court split over the decision and agreed to delay that payout until the Supreme Court weighs in.
In 2023, another jury said Carroll was entitled to $5 million after concluding that Trump had subjected her to sexual abuse in the department store encounter and for defamation for remarks he had made after his first term ended. That judgment has been paid.
The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.
Whitehurst and Neumeister write for the Associated Press. Neumeister reported from New York.
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Jared Leto breaks silence on shock sexual criminal conduct claims from four women including one who was ‘raped by star’
JARED Leto has broken his silence on allegations of criminal sexual conduct, calling them “categorically false”.
Four women including accused the Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman of criminal sexual conduct, with one alleging he raped her as a teenager.
He said: “I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false.”
The allegations against the Oscar winner, 54, date from when the women were aged between 16 and 19.
Sign up for the Showbiz newsletter
Thank you!
One accuser alleges she had sex with Leto when she was 17, which under Californian laws would be classed as statutory rape.
The Hollywood star, aged 34 at the time, invited the woman and a friend to his Californian home, the alleged accuser told the BBC.
She claims Leto told her friend to wait in a separate room as the alleged rape took place.
A second woman claims she was sexually assaulted in a “dingy” Las Vegas motel bathroom when she was 17.
Leto, who was in his early 30s at the time, allegedly invited the girl into the bathroom as he showered and made her touch him inappropriately.
A third claims the Dallas Buyers Club star threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19 after the pair were left alone in a hotel room.
The allegations came after a Thirty Seconds to Mars concert at London’s O2 Arena in 2013 when Leto would have been 41.
A fourth accused Leto of grooming her and alleges he once took advantage of his celebrity status by making repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16.
He suggested they should have sex on at least one occasion, the alleged victim claims.
The accusations all come from a new BBC documentary titled Jared Leto: Hollywood‘s Dark Secret.
The BBC claims they have seen at least one non-disclosure agreement (NDA) sent to a woman aimed at preventing her from talking about her relationship with Leto.
Another woman also accuses the Morbius lead of ordering a security guard to take her backstage at a music festival when she was 14.
More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online
Thesun.co.uk is your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures and must-see video.
Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thesun and follow us on TikTok @TheSun.
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Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson ‘blameless for violent conduct’ – ECB
The decision on Stokes and Atkinson brings an element of closure to an extraordinary period, as English cricket has had to deal with yet another off-field controversy.
Without Stokes and Atkinson, an inexperienced England team showing five changes to the one that won the first Test was soundly beaten in the second.
It means Stokes will be back for a crucial decider at Trent Bridge, with England desperate for a series win to alleviate pressure that has grown over the dismal Ashes winter and this latest chaotic episode.
And while Stokes’ return as a leader and all-rounder is vital for his team, there will be renewed scrutiny on his relationship with the rest of the England hierarchy, in particular head coach Brendon McCullum.
All of Stokes, McCullum and director of cricket Rob Key denied the captain and coach were at odds during the Ashes, when England were hammered 4-1.
Speaking on Sunday, after the loss at The Oval, McCullum said he is ready to work with Stokes again.
“We’ve worked together intimately for four years,” said McCullum. “We’ve achieved some cool things and let ourselves down in other things.
“Our motivation, belief and ambition for this side has not wavered. We have robust conversations all the way through and I think that is to be expected when you’re in positions of leadership. There is a mutual respect to how we operate with those.
“I anticipate we’ll be able to work together really well in the week coming and I’m sure that both of us have that same vision for this cricket team.”
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Bill Cosby denied new trial in $19-million L.A. sexual assault case
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has denied Bill Cosby’s request for a new trial after a civil jury recently found he was liable for $19 million in damages in a sexual assault case.
Judge Bradley S. Phillips ruled Friday that Cosby did not prove there was “any irregularity” in the court proceedings that would have prevented him from getting a fair trial and that the damages awarded to his accuser were not “excessive.”
“The Court finds that there was sufficient evidence … to support the jury’s finding that defendant’s conduct caused plaintiff’s damages,” Phillips wrote in Friday’s order.
In March, a jury awarded former waitress Donna Motsinger $19.25 million in damages after she sued Cosby in 2023, alleging that the disgraced comedian drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1972 after escorting her to one of his shows.
Motsinger, now 84, claimed Cosby picked her up at her home and gave her wine and a pill she thought was aspirin on the way to the venue.
“Next thing she knew, she was going in and out of consciousness while two men attending to Mr. Cosby were putting her in the limousine,” the original complaint said. “The last thing Ms. Motsinger recalls were flashes of light,” before waking up in her house in nothing but underwear.
Cosby has denied Motsinger’s allegations, as well as those brought by dozens of other women who said they had been drugged and sexually assaulted by the former actor. Cosby served about three years in a Pennsylvania prison on sexual assault charges before that case was overturned in 2021.
Cosby had filed a motion for a new trial in the Motsinger case in early April. Attorneys for Cosby did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Friday’s ruling.
Times staff writer Fedor Zarkhin contributed to this report.
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ICE officer wanted for shooting a man during the Minneapolis crackdown is arrested in Texas
MINNEAPOLIS — A federal immigration officer wanted for shooting a Venezuelan man during the Trump administration’s Minnesota crackdown was arrested Friday in Texas, authorities said.
Christian Castro, of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, was taken into custody 11 days after Minneapolis prosecutors charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.
Hennepin County, Minnesota prosecutors said the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension located Castro, 52, in Texas and worked with agents from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General’s Office and the Texas Rangers to arrest him.
“Today’s arrest is a critical step forward in our prosecution of Mr. Castro,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said.
Online court records do not list an attorney for Castro and it wasn’t immediately clear if he has one. Messages seeking comment were left with ICE, the Homeland Security Inspector General’s Office and the Texas Rangers.
Castro is the second federal agent to be charged over their conduct during the Minnesota crackdown, which was known as Operation Metro Surge. He is one of two agents that ICE Director Todd Lyons said lied about the circumstances of the incident.
Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty holds up a document containing charges against ICE agent Christian Castro during a news conference at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis, on Monday, May 18, 2026.
(Renée Jones Schneider/Minnesota Star Tribune Via Associated Press)
According to prosecutors, Castro fired through a home’s front door and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were legally in the U.S., Moriarty said.
Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel. A federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether officers lied about what happened.
In a statement after the charges were announced, ICE said the U.S. attorney’s office was investigating statements made by officers, who could face disciplinary action including being fired and prosecuted. ICE called the Hennepin County attorney’s action “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt.” DHS’s Inspector General’s Office, which Moriarty credited with assisting in the arrest, is separate from ICE and is meant to serve as a watchdog for DHS agencies, including ICE.
Minneapolis last month released video showing the moments before Sosa-Celis’s shooting, captured from a distance by a city-owned security camera.
The video appears to show a person standing with a snow shovel outside the house, near the street, then retreating toward the house and tossing the shovel into the yard. This happens as a person being chased by another person runs up from the street, falls on the sidewalk, gets up, and keeps heading toward the house.
The three appear to scuffle near the front steps for about 10 seconds. The exact moment when Sosa-Celis is shot isn’t clear. A car with flashing lights pulls up, and another person walks up.
The Trump administration sent thousands of officers to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area as part of President Trump’s national deportation campaign and considered Operation Metro Surge a success.
But tensions mounted during the weekslong campaign, and the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers sparked mass unrest and raised questions about officers’ conduct.
Minnesota leaders and the Trump administration have clashed over who has the authority to investigate and prosecute federal officers for on-duty conduct.
Moriarty’s office last month charged immigration agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car on a highway. He turned himself in last week and his lawyer disputes the charges.
The county is also investigating Good’s and Pretti’s killings and sued the Trump administration in March to gain access to evidence in those cases and the Sosa-Celis shooting.
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